Gear Fab Rec. 
Chaplin Harness (US,1969,pub.2009)****
Chaplin Harness album shows how the band have a feeling for a good balance between longer jams with blues and rock in it ; also within some improvisations they kept the same structural melodic-rhythmical fundament as what makes blues-rock songs so groovy, so that their sound succeeds and remains strong from start to finish.
The drum part thus continues its interesting rhythmic fundaments within the improvisations and also the electric guitar as well as the organ keeps this tension intact. There’s an East Coast feeling involved with a hippie and blues touch but occasionally this is performed as if this also breaks out of its stylistic smoothness. The rhythmic guitar for instance plays in a way that it recalls nearly funky elements without ever using this style element and the piano plays more often as if being late night jazz bar improvisations. And also, it is as if they have something of the biker road music smoothness within their use of rhythms and drives. The lead singer sings either with a more screaming force, in the late 60s American tradition of trying to add extra power in the voice to create a different white blues alternative by singing more in a black way, elsewhere he’s a more hippie voice while there are added occasional backing vocals arrangements. The organ is great when leading and improvising, and when it is not, it takes over the part like a rhythm guitar (like on the great “3/4 Plaything”, also interesting for its great rhythmic fundament). Less guitar solos are featured, but there are some, mostly in a bluesy fashion. I also need to mention a few other extraordinary ideas, like more strange contemporary almost avant-garde (-for a band with a rather bluesy rock fundament especially-) jazzy chords on piano on an interesting smooth rhythm, still within the east coast context, on “Stitch”. The bass lines are mostly mixed in a bit softly, but “3/4 Plaything” also featured a bass lead solo (each one of the instruments also had one).
Despite some vinyl distortion in the high notes in beginning of the recording, the label managed to deliver an acceptable sound quality of this rather unknown band’s only acetate copy, after a limited vinyl reissue of the same recordings on Void records some four years ago. The band wasn’t entirely unknown at the time. They have played with the Nazz as well as with many other big names on the road. Guitarist Rick Lannaconne became more know within jazz circles.
